"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation.

You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

Dr. Adrian Rogers 1931-2005

Friday, March 17, 2017

Here are some things my Dad had on him

when he died. Now my mother shared long ago that he had in one of his pockets a written note of The Irish Blessing:

May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
And rain fall soft upon your fields, and until we meet again,
May God have you in the palm of His hand.

After he was killed mom had dad's military photo printed with the Irish Blessing on the back.

In the box my sister recently sent me, I discovered that my mother wrote several letters to track down my dad's personal effects. Several people worked hard and maintained contact with mom until things finally were located and sent to her. Based on these letters I know of several of the items that he had on him.

Here is another item that was in my dad's pockets.

It is a quote credited to Robert E. Lee -1865 that says,

I would sooner die a thousand deaths than betray a friend or be false to duty.

Now we have internet so I googled this quote and discovered that it was not said by Robert E. Lee, but a young man named Sam Davis, who fought for the Confederacy. His life was short but he was a man with honor.

As I looked at this small slip of paper with this quote on it, I wondered who wrote it. I have almost nothing of my dad's. Then as I keep digging through the box, I found a letter my dad wrote and I am fairly certain my dad penned this quote after he heard it. Here is why I think my dad wrote this quote:

if you look at the d in the word deaths, and the d on the lower right of the paper on the right, you see that they are similar. The paper on the right has my dad's signature on it. I could be wrong but it looks the same. The y's on both papers are written in many ways but I will today rest believing he had this in his pocket as well and that he wrote it.

These two items are things that make me feel a bit of happiness for a man in the middle of a war zone. I feel as though dad was defining who he was~as a man of honor and if he died, he wished nothing but goodness for those that remained.

I am going to continue writing and sharing about my dad as I never knew anything about him until I was married and had children. Mom never spoke much about him until near her death, and aside from the photo of him in this post, I never saw another one of him until I actually went to Oklahoma and visited my dad's hometown. Those that are visiting the blog and are learning things about my dad, I will say we are learning these things together as I am sharing as I go through the items. One thing that my mom said a bit before she died was that dad was such an honorable man. As I am going through his things, I believe that she right.

Michelle, I realized as I responded to Deanna something. A loss is hard at any age. I never had the emotion of the loss but instead the awareness that dad never was. My mom did not speak of my dad,then she remarried. I know now that her not speaking of him was because of her pain. Therefore I never knew anything. Mom did not live near dads family and they did not connect but maybe by a holiday present, so it has been an emptiness. When mom died three of the siblings ended up with things that are about my dad, and I am getting to know him. It may have happened in 1967 but for me I am just reading the news. My children have no connection, my siblings all live in different areas, and my husband supports my discoveries by reading the blog and then speaking with me. The blog is therefore my way to process the information. Oh it also is a legacy of how the sacrifice that our soldiers pay is an unsettled debt for the family's.

About Me

I have been married to my best friend for nearly 29 years and we live on a small farm in the middle of the desert.
We have four children (now adults) three daughters-in-law, two grandsons and look forward to many more added to the fold.